BATON ROUGE – While legal battles continue in court over whether Common Core will remain the state's standards for reading, writing and math, the Department of Education is moving forward with a package to help teachers use it in their classrooms.

Superintendent of Education John White and Board of Elementary and Secondary Education President Chas Roemer maintain that until they are forced to change, Common Core will remain in public schools.

"As we enter the fifth year of our state's transition to higher expectations, it is essential that we continue to provide teachers with every resource we can, so that they can help their students reach new heights," White said Wednesday in announcing training opportunities and new sample test questions to assist teachers.

A Baton Rouge judge is considering whether Gov. Bobby Jindal abused his constitutional authority when he blocked the education department's effort to purchase test questions aligned with Common Core. That issue, in a lawsuit filed by parents, teachers and a New Orleans charter schools operator, is to be heard Monday.

But Jindal's attorney expanded the issue by asking the judge to rule on whether using the test violates federal law and has asked the judge to throw out the original lawsuit claiming the plaintiffs have no standing to sue him over the matter.

In another lawsuit in court Friday, 17 lawmakers claim that BESE did not follow state law in adopting Common Core in 2010.

Regardless of how the judges rule, the issue is not expected to be settled soon, so White said school will go on as planned with Common Core in place.

In the package of teacher assistance released today, new resources include hundreds of online trainings for teachers across the state, more than 1,000 new sample test questions, double the number of state-led reviews of textbooks and an expansion of the Teacher Leaders program that trains teachers to assist others with questions about the standards.

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